Curling Safety, Urgent Care, and Mexican Wrestling (for non-curlers)

Thank you for being brave enough to read a story about curling.  This version of the story is modified so that normal people .. er ah .. non-curlers can enjoy it.  

A "sheet" on which the game is played.

Please understand that curling is somewhat similar to bocce in the manner in which it is played.  If you don’t know anyone whose last name ends in a vowel, and have never played bocce, think shuffleboard.  Sort of. The kind played with disks on concrete. If neither of those games rings a bell, may you enjoy whatever it is you do for entertainment.

After dinner, Mary and I were off to meet the other two members of our team at the Curling Club for our match against one of the better mixed teams.  They’d won almost every game since they formed their team. Our record was somewhat worse. Very much somewhat.

Our plan to just stay with them was working pretty well until just past halfway through the game, where we missed taking out numerous opposition stones.  We delivered our stones at theirs with the intent of removing them from the scoring area, but alas, to no avail. We had the last shot, but no high percentage possibility to use it on.  After extensive strategizing, perhaps better described as panicked guessing, we finally decided on a runback of one of our stones. Unless the shooter is really skilled, a runback is a low percentage shot where you use your stone to hit a guarding stone into the oppositions stones in scoring position.  In this case, a successful runback would cut the number of scoring stones for the opposition down from 4 to 1, and the blowout would be delayed once again.

Bolstered by the knowledge that I occasionally make the intended shot, the forcefully delivered stone was soon on its way.  Because the stones never move perfectly straight, the aiming point must be at a target somewhere laterally distant from the desired point of impact.  In this case, the broom used for the target (brooms are used for more than sweeping!) was in the right place, and the stone was delivered right at it.  

I'm right handed, so the teflon-bottom shoe is my left.
The rubber "gripper" is placed over the sliding surface
when sliding is not the desired means of locomotion.

When one delivers a stone, it is customary to slide out on one teflon-coated foot along with that stone.  Finishing the post-delivery slide after releasing the stone, I stood up and saw the runback hit the pack, removing 2 opposition stones and edging out another.  Happily, I turned halfway toward my starting point and pushed with my non-sliding foot so I could travel back to retrieve my broom and glove removed for delivering the stone.

The retrievables.

I didn’t make it.  Either my sideways-moving slider caught on some frozen feature in the surface, or I didn’t get my sliding foot out in front of my aging body’s center of gravity as I pushed with the opposite foot.  Regardless, I found myself airborne.  

Being slightly heavier than air, I was falling toward the ice, face-first.  I didn’t quite get my arm out in front in time. Instinctively turning my head at the last split-second, contact was made not with my forehead, but with the bony brow ridge over my right eye.  Nicely engineered, that bit of skull.

The sound was akin to the melodic “boink” of the 8-ball being contacted by the cue ball on a soft, high-angle shaving which gently sends the 8 into the side pocket of a pool table.  How appropriate that the sonic analogy is also for a low percentage shot. But to generate the same sound, the cue and 8 would need to be quite oversized. 

Immediately after contact, I jumped to my feet.  In all the years I’ve curled, with all the falls I’ve taken (a pattern?), I’ve never before put my head in any jeopardy.  I was thankful that it had only been a glancing blow and was not at all serious. So I pushed off again, a bit more cautiously, and slid back to grab the glove.  

“Better get some ice on that,” called out the single distant onlooker who had observed my performance.

Back behind the starting point, off the playing surface, I bent down and put my head on the ice for dramatic effect.  “How’s this?” I replied.

Then I noticed the ice beneath my brow was extremely slippery, and not nearly as cold as expected.  I rose up and saw red where the ice should have been white.

“Whoa...you need to sit down, right now!” cried one of the opposing players.  I sat on the bench just off the ice surface. Suddenly gauze and paper towels appeared, followed by an ice pack, and the gaze of multiple concerned curlers.  There are times when even attention seekers regret achieving the center. “Gotta get some stitches,” offered one of them, who carries RN credentials.

I sat and took it all in, begrudgingly admitting that not only was some medical attention necessary, but also that my curling was finished for the evening.  “Damn,” I thought, “I was curling really well.” There is no lack of self delusion in curling.

My teammate John had a different assessment of the fall.  “Randy chose a tough shot, executed well, and then fainted when he realized he had actually made it.”

Before leaving the ice to scissors-modify a few band-aids into butterfly bandages, there was one more issue to deal with.  The Scots have invented two games that have spread worldwide. Curling, of course, is the more important of the two, but since the Scottish needed something to do in that brief period when the ice on the ponds was insufficient to hold the weight of curling stones, they also invented golf.  While otherwise dissimilar, the two games share an important point of commonality. One can imbibe while playing.

50 year old photo of the red stone on the right
being swept to make it travel straighter.
The essence of curling has not changed over that time.

While sitting on the bench and applying cold pressure to my head, I called out to one of our opponents.  “Jason, can you please hand me my beer?”

Being of Canadian roots, Jason understood completely, so I was soon able to administer general as well as local anesthesia.  Lest you think that the beer had anything to do with the unexpected change in altitude of my cranium, the glass was more than half full, and was preceded by no others.  I was duty bound to consume it, or I’d be guilty of alcohol abuse. And it was particularly satisfying right at that moment.

We were soon off to a nearby Urgent Care.  Mary insisted on driving. Though we arrived 15 minutes prior to closing, none of the staff seemed terribly aggravated at an arrival extending their hours.  The whole urgent care escapade took 45 minutes...less time than it would have taken to even be acknowledged at the local Hospital Emergency Room.  

On the basis of higher internet ratings, we selected an Urgent Care that was not the closest to our home.  This turned out to be a fortunate choice. While discussing the merits of stitches vs. glue with the Doctor, he suggested glue might be a better option than stitches.  We had let it be known that we were escaping the curling zone to go to Mexico in a few days.

Finding someone on the Baja Peninsula to take out the stitches did not sound appealing, so glue it was. 

The Doctor set to work cleaning the wound and then layering the cyanoacrylate so that it would hold.  The stuff stings when it goes on. Since I was on my back, staring at the ceiling while on the treatment table, the dripping excess ran down from near the outside corner of my eye and into the hair near my ear.  Appropriately, the glue job gave half of my face the look of a Mexican Wrestler. When the opportunity presents itself, I will wrestle under the name of “El Lanzador de Piedra,” (The Stone Thrower).

Glue was the right choice, but I do feel a little cheated.  The incident did not contribute to my lifetime stitch count, which is well over 100.  I’ll have to research the conversion factor. Mary says the Doctor used 2 tubes of the medical crazy glue.  I’m guessing that the medical version costs a bit more than what you can get at the Dollar Store, but I suppose the same is true of needle and thread.

The other fortuitous happenstance was that the Doctor suggested a tetanus shot.  I doubt that any tetanus-causing bacteria lived on the ice, but I thought, “Why not?” particularly in light of the personal tendencies that fostered the aforementioned stitch count.  Perhaps the Doctor was prescient, anticipating that I’d rip my hand open on a chain link fence while visiting our southern neighbor.  

A tip of my Tam O’Shanter (Scottish hat) to the best Urgent Care ever.

So, what can be learned from this tale?

• When curling, avoid changing directions quickly.
• Never move backward on ice.
• The best doctors treat you not only for immediate maladies, but also for what will happen in the future.
• Wisdom is not necessarily correlated with age.
• Crazy glue is the best choice for crazy people.